Diary of Chinese rail worker a wonder

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/11/2020 (2086 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This book’s dedication says it all: To the faces not in the picture.

The only first-hand account by a Chinese railroad worker known to exist in all of North America ( “Gold Mountain” to those early immigrants), the story of how The Diary of Dukesang Wong came to light is as interesting as the journal itself.

Because of the brutal and transient nature of their work, their appalling wages, their poor health, their frequent illiteracy and their being periodically burned out of their homes, those who were at the time known as “coolies” have remained largely voiceless and faceless in Canadian history.

They’re conspicuously absent, for example, from photos celebrating the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. The staggering feat of bringing the railway through the mountains to the West Coast could not have been accomplished without their contribution; other than oral history recordings, however, their own perspective has been profoundly lacking.

David McIlwraith, a Canadian writer, actor and film director based in Hamilton and The Diary of Dukesang Wong’s editor, and other history sleuths have gone as far as travelling to China in search of family letters or other personal documents to fill in that yawning chasm, but with no success.

It’s a wonder, then, that this volume survived to see publication. This unique document could have been lost forever if Wanda Joy Hoe hadn’t decided to translate portions of her grandfather’s diary (her translation all that remains of the original) for a university course, if McIlwraith hadn’t adopted a daughter from China, if a single quote in an unmarked drawer hadn’t been discovered.

Dukesang Wong, 21 years old in 1867 and classically educated in the teachings of Confucius, began keeping a diary during a troubled time. His father, an Imperial court magistrate, had recently been poisoned, the entire family dishonoured and shunned, his future made precarious.

Trying to regain his family’s good name in China became a lifelong but futile endeavour for Wong, though by 1918, when he wrote his last diary entry, he was a family man in his 70s, a highly respected member of British Columbia’s Chinese community.

His account of the intervening years reveal a truly hardy soul. It’s a portrait of restlessness leading to emigration, first impressions of a “barbaric” land where he and his compatriots routinely face contempt, and dreams of his promised bride fuelling his need to save money and accept harsh physical work.

Wong’s compassionate presence, along with an indictment of his employers, comes through loud and clear in Hoe’s translation, most indelibly as he describes his skeletal co-workers, driven to keep up their mad pace despite winter conditions and illness.

For McIlwraith, this is an obvious labour of love, presenting carefully researched background material in a colourful way.

Anyone with an interest in early Chinese immigration to Canada or family history in general will find this volume to be a little gem, one that will hopefully inspire others with irreplaceable family documents to preserve them for posterity.

Ursula Fuchs has some cassette recordings she’s been meaning to get digitized.